Untamed Love is based on a true story adapted from the book One Child. However it has the sheen of a 1990s typical made for cable television film and not a very good one at that.Maggie (Cathy Lee Crosby) is a devoted teacher to a class of students with special educational needs. She reluctantly accepts a 6 year old girl, Caitlin who comes from a disturbed background and refuses to speak. Caitlin who is uncooperative at first slowly blossoms.However Maggie finds out that Caitlin may be sent to a state mental institution and she and her lawyer boyfriend fights to keep her out especially as it seems Caitlin has emotionally developed a lot and has a high IQ.The problem with the movie is that it is like a lot of true life films of that era. Emotionally manipulative, half baked and flatly scripted and directed. It lacks grittiness. Caitlin comes from a rough, dirty background but we never really get the feel of it although they make the father out to be a boorish, trailer trash scumbag.There are hints that her father sexually abuses Caitlin but that aspect of the story is not fully explored apart from when she is suddenly taken to hospital.The film has been sanitised so much you can smell the antiseptic through the television screen.

I read the book by Torey Hayden a while ago and didn't know that the film was based on that until I began watching it. The book was not something I would normally have watched but once I started I could not put it down.Although some may say it is not as good as the book the storyline is almost identical, after only 5 minutes into the film ( even though all the names were different )I knew it was based on the book and the cast had been picked exactly as i imagined them , well done ! I am not sure if I would have understood a lot of what was happening in the story had I not read the book but with hindsight I found it compulsive viewing as the book had been compulsive reading .

Humm well I've read the book "One Child" and i have to say that they cut a lot more than i thought they would out they never talk about what caused or why the guy did what he did to the girl, I knew that there was a lot of stuff they couldn't actually show you like seeing what she actually had done or anything and i know that the film was made a while ago now but they didn't even cover it in a conversation between Maggie and Catline as when reading the book the after school sessions that they had were very important and the fact that she didn't talk at all when she joined the class.... Humm i liked the film and I'm sure that a lot of people liked it it was just a bit toooo far away from the book i thought but hey its hard to make a film like that so they did well for that :)...

I haven't actually seen this film, but I wanted to point out that it is based on Torey Hayden's book One Child, which is about a 6 year old girl called Sheila- Sheila came into Torey Hayden's class for "special children" at the age of 6 after having tied a 3-year-old child to a tree and critically burned him. (from the back of the book) Torey herself, on her website (www.torey-hayden.com) says that this film was not as good as she wanted it to be. If you want to get the real story, read One Child (and Tiger's Child- the sequel). Also, go to her website, which also has a message board to discuss her books and other stuff.